Kidney transplant recipient Becky Kelly said there are about 118,000 people in need of a kidney transplant.

"An organ donor can save up to eight to 10 lives," she said. "They can use kidneys, hearts and skin, all sorts of things that you might not think of that they can use in donation. Everybody needs to put that on their driver's licenses and let their family know their wishes."

Each year organ and tissue donation saves thousands of lives in Colorado and across the United States helping people walk again, see again, and recover from severe burns and other injuries and illnesses.

In Colorado and Wyoming, more than 2,500 people are currently waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant.

Fifteen percent of current transplant candidates in Colorado have been on the waiting list for five years or more.

Colorado has one of the nation's highest-performing state donor registries with more than 67 percent of driver's license/ID card applicants registering as organ and tissue donors (as of 2013 year-end).

Becky Kelly's photo and plight to find a kidney prominently were displayed on a Cañon City billboard on two separate occasions for all to see on U.S. 50. Now, she says she is a walking billboard herself in an effort to raise awareness of the need for kidney and organ donations. She's also a billboard of encouragement for anyone who is suffering with a serious or life-threatening illness.

Kelly, 63, finally received her second life-saving kidney transplant in July in Texas, just about the time she was losing hope of ever finding a suitable match.

"After six years, it has made me appreciate my life and everybody in my life so much more," she said. "This was such a gift."

When Kelly was first diagnosed with a rare genetic kidney disease called atypical hemolytic-uremic syndrome in 2009, she was told she needed a kidney transplant, and her name was added to two donor lists. For a year after the diagnosis, she continued to work teaching health classes at Territorial Correctional facility until her health started failing. Dozens of her friends and co-workers tested to see if they possibly would be a match.

In 2010, her friend Shellen Rhoden passed away from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and donated her kidneys to Kelly. She was sick for 18 months following the transplant, and unfortunately, the kidney disease eventually attacked the new kidneys. Cañon City Councilman and Raft Masters co-owner Dennis Wied donated the billboard for a second time on U.S. 50, asking for help in finding Kelly a kidney.

Kelly had been working in conjunction with University of Colorado Hospital, and decided to see a doctor in Texas, near where her dad lives. She tested again in Houston in February of this year, and in July she was given a kidney from a deceased donor. After receiving the kidney, she wrote a letter to the donor's family that will passed on to them through LifeGift.

"That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to write, because I didn't know what to say," Kelly said. "I ended up saying how grateful I was, how I have two children, I have a grandchild and another one on the way. I said, 'Your family member has given me life, and in a way, he is still alive with me,' — the last six years I really haven't had a life, I've been trying to stay alive."

She now considers July 24, the day of her transplant, her "new" birthday. The surgery was five hours, and she spent five days in the hospital, but this time, she immediately felt better following the operation, and has felt good since.

"I was out shopping the day after being released from the hospital," she said. "I felt great."

Among her friends and colleagues who initially were tested as prospective kidney matches, her friend D. McKinna-Welch was deemed a "perfect" match. The women have been friends since they met on the golf course in 1991.

"They told her they never, ever expected her to find a match because she had 99 percent antibodies and she would have rejected almost everybody's kidneys," Welch said.

For a moment, all was right in both women's worlds. But only for a moment. Unfortunately, through the intensive testing process, Welch learned she had cancer in her lung.

"Everything that happened to Becky has happened to me, for a different reason," Welch said. "It's like at some point we intersected and went opposite directions again — I am sick in the way she used to be, and she is well now in the way I used to be."

Welch, also 63, has tried in the last couple of years different treatments and chemotherapies. Her cancer is terminal, she said, but it is uncertain at this point how her body will respond to her current, new therapy medication. Nonetheless, she said she has a strong inner-core and spiritual sense of self that has allowed her to understand why this has happened, and to feel at peace about dying, whether its months or years from now.

"I really was alive while I was alive," she said. "I feel really good about that, and I don't have too many regrets."

Kelly and Welch agree that personal relationships are the most important thing in life.

"Nothing is more important," Welch said. "At the end of your life, you aren't going to say, 'I sure wish I would have dusted under the bed,' you're going to say, 'I am so glad that everybody is going to miss me.'"

Kelly speaks about risk factors for kidney disease at the annual senior mini college at Pueblo Community College, and she plans to volunteer for Senior Services Solutions (Friendly Visitors) driving people to doctor appointments and look for a teaching job.

Both women plan to enjoy and cherish every minute of the Christmas season with family, making the most of each moment.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.